Metagenomics and the molecular identification of novel viruses. Vet J. 2011;190:191-198. [PMID: 21111643 PMCID: PMC7110547 DOI: 10.1016/j.tvjl.2010.10.014]

Metagenomic and Molecular Detection of Novel Fecal Viruses in Free-Ranging Agile Wallabies

The agile wallaby (Notamacropus agilis) is one of the most abundant marsupial species in northern Queensland and a competent host for the zoonotic Ross River virus. Despite their increased proximity and interactions with humans, little is known about the viruses carried by these animals, and whether any are of conservation or zoonotic importance. Metagenomics and molecular techniques were used in a complementary manner to identify and characterize novel viruses in the fecal samples of free-ranging agile wallabies. We detected a variety of novel marsupial-related viral species including agile wallaby atadenovirus 1, agile wallaby chaphamaparvovirus 1-2, agile wallaby polyomavirus 1-2, agile wallaby associated picobirnavirus 1-9, and a known macropod gammaherpesvirus 3. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that most of these novel viruses would have co-evolved with their hosts (agile wallabies). Additionally, non-marsupial viruses that infect bacteria (phages), plants, insects, and other eukaryotes were identified. This study highlighted the utility of non-invasive sampling as well as the integration of broad-based molecular assays (consensus PCR and next generation sequencing) for monitoring the emergence of potential pathogenic viruses in wildlife species. Furthermore, the novel marsupial viruses identified in this study will enrich the diversity of knowledge about marsupial viruses, and may be useful for developing diagnostics and vaccines.

Establishing farm dust as a useful viral metagenomic surveillance matrix

Farm animals may harbor viral pathogens, some with zoonotic potential which can possibly cause severe clinical outcomes in animals and humans. Documenting the viral content of dust may provide information on the potential sources and movement of viruses. Here, we describe a dust sequencing strategy that provides detailed viral sequence characterization from farm dust samples and use this method to document the virus communities from chicken farm dust samples and paired feces collected from the same broiler farms in the Netherlands. From the sequencing data, Parvoviridae and Picornaviridae were the most frequently found virus families, detected in 85-100% of all fecal and dust samples with a large genomic diversity identified from the Picornaviridae. Sequences from the Caliciviridae and Astroviridae familes were also obtained. This study provides a unique characterization of virus communities in farmed chickens and paired farm dust samples and our sequencing methodology enabled the recovery of viral genome sequences from farm dust, providing important tracking details for virus movement between livestock animals and their farm environment. This study serves as a proof of concept supporting dust sampling to be used in viral metagenomic surveillance.

Flavivirus Persistence in Wildlife Populations

A substantial number of humans are at risk for infection by vector-borne flaviviruses, resulting in considerable morbidity and mortality worldwide. These viruses also infect wildlife at a considerable rate, persistently cycling between ticks/mosquitoes and small mammals and reptiles and non-human primates and humans. Substantially increasing evidence of viral persistence in wildlife continues to be reported. In addition to in humans, viral persistence has been shown to establish in mammalian, reptile, arachnid, and mosquito systems, as well as insect cell lines. Although a considerable amount of research has centered on the potential roles of defective virus particles, autophagy and/or apoptosis-induced evasion of the immune response, and the precise mechanism of these features in flavivirus persistence have yet to be elucidated. In this review, we present findings that aid in understanding how vector-borne flavivirus persistence is established in wildlife. Research studies to be discussed include determining the critical roles universal flavivirus non-structural proteins played in flaviviral persistence, the advancement of animal models of viral persistence, and studying host factors that allow vector-borne flavivirus replication without destructive effects on infected cells. These findings underscore the viral–host relationships in wildlife animals and could be used to elucidate the underlying mechanisms responsible for the establishment of viral persistence in these animals.

Molecular and Immunological Diagnostic Techniques of Medical Viruses

Viral infections are causing serious problems in human population worldwide. The recent outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by SARS-CoV-2 is a perfect example how viral infection could pose a great threat to global public health and economic sectors. Therefore, the first step in combating viral pathogens is to get a timely and accurate diagnosis. Early and accurate detection of the viral presence in patient sample is crucial for appropriate treatment, control, and prevention of epidemics. Here, we summarize some of the molecular and immunological diagnostic approaches available for the detection of viral infections of humans. Molecular diagnostic techniques provide rapid viral detection in patient sample. They are also relatively inexpensive and highly sensitive and specific diagnostic methods. Immunological-based techniques have been extensively utilized for the detection and epidemiological studies of human viral infections. They can detect antiviral antibodies or viral antigens in clinical samples. There are several commercially available molecular and immunological diagnostic kits that facilitate the use of these methods in the majority of clinical laboratories worldwide. In developing countries including Ethiopia where most of viral infections are endemic, exposure to improved or new methods is highly limited as these methods are very costly to use and also require technical skills. Since researchers and clinicians in all corners of the globe are working hard, it is hoped that in the near future, they will develop good quality tests that can be accessible in low-income countries.

Application of Viral Metagenomics for Study of Emerging and Reemerging Tick-Borne Viruses

Ticks are important vectors for different tick-borne viruses, some of which cause diseases and death in humans, livestock, and wild animals. Tick-borne encephalitis virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, Kyasanur forest disease virus, severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus, Heartland virus, African swine fever virus, Nairobi sheep disease virus, and Louping ill virus are just a few examples of important tick-borne viruses. The majority of tick-borne viruses have RNA genomes that routinely undergo rapid genetic modifications such as point mutations during their replication. These genomic changes can influence the spread of viruses to new habitats and hosts and lead to the emergence of novel viruses that can pose a threat to public health. Therefore, investigation of the viruses circulating in ticks is important to understand their diversity, host and vector range, and evolutionary history, as well as to predict new emerging pathogens. The choice of detection method is important, as most methods detect only those viruses that have been previously well described. On the other hand, viral metagenomics is a useful tool to simultaneously identify all the viruses present in a sample, including novel variants of already known viruses or completely new viruses. This review describes tick-borne viruses, their historical background of emergence, and their reemergence in nature, and the use of viral metagenomics for viral discovery and studies of viral evolution.

Metagenomics revealing new virus species in farm and pet animals and aquaculture

Viral metagenomics is slowly taking over the traditional and widely used molecular techniques for the investigation of pathogenic viruses responsible for illness and inflicting great economic burden on the farm animal industry. Owing to the continued improvements in sequencing technologies and the dramatic reduction of per base costs of sequencing the use of next generation sequencing have been key factors in this progress. Discoveries linked to viral metagenomics are expected to be beneficial to the field of veterinary medicine starting from the development of better diagnostic assays to the design of new subunit vaccines with minimal investments. With these achievements the research has taken a giant leap even toward the better healthcare of animals and, as a result, the animal sector could be growing at an unprecedented pace.

Expanding the RNA Virosphere by Unbiased Metagenomics

Although viruses comprise the most abundant genetic material in the biosphere, to date only several thousand virus species have been formally defined. Such a limited perspective on virus diversity has in part arisen because viruses were traditionally considered only as etiologic agents of overt disease in humans or economically important species and were often difficult to identify using cell culture. This view has dramatically changed with the rise of metagenomics, which is transforming virus discovery and revealing a remarkable diversity of viruses sampled from diverse cellular organisms. These newly discovered viruses help fill major gaps in the evolutionary history of viruses, revealing a near continuum of diversity among genera, families, and even orders of RNA viruses. Herein, we review some of the recent advances in our understanding of the RNA virosphere that have stemmed from metagenomics, note future directions, and highlight some of the remaining challenges to this rapidly developing field.

Laboratory Methods in Molecular Epidemiology: Viral Infections

Viruses, which are the most abundant biological entities on the planet, have been regarded as the "dark matter" of biology in the sense that despite their ubiquity and frequent presence in large numbers, their detection and analysis are not always straightforward. The majority of them are very small (falling under the limit of 0.5 μm), and collectively, they are extraordinarily diverse. In fact, the majority of the genetic diversity on the planet is found in the so-called virosphere, or the world of viruses. Furthermore, the most frequent viral agents of disease in humans display an RNA genome, and frequently evolve very fast, due to the fact that most of their polymerases are devoid of proofreading activity. Therefore, their detection, genetic characterization, and epidemiological surveillance are rather challenging. This review (part of the Curated Collection on Advances in Molecular Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases) describes many of the methods that, throughout the last few decades, have been used for viral detection and analysis. Despite the challenge of having to deal with high genetic diversity, the majority of these methods still depend on the amplification of viral genomic sequences, using sequence-specific or sequence-independent approaches, exploring thermal profiles or a single nucleic acid amplification temperature. Furthermore, viral populations, and especially those with RNA genomes, are not usually genetically uniform but encompass swarms of genetically related, though distinct, viral genomes known as viral quasispecies. Therefore, sequence analysis of viral amplicons needs to take this fact into consideration, as it constitutes a potential analytic problem. Possible technical approaches to deal with it are also described here. *This article is part of a curated collection.

The intestinal virome of malabsorption syndrome-affected and unaffected broilers through shotgun metagenomics

Malabsorption syndrome (MAS) is an economically important disease of young, commercially reared broilers, characterized by growth retardation, defective feather development and diarrheic faeces. Several viruses have been tentatively associated to such syndrome. Here, in order to examine potential associations between enteric viruses and MAS, the faecal viromes of 70 stool samples collected from diseased (n = 35) and healthy (n = 35) chickens from seven flocks were characterized and compared. Following high-throughput sequencing, a total of 8,347,319 paired end reads, with an average of 231 nt, were generated. Through analysis of de novo assembled contigs, 144 contigs > 1000 nt were identified with hits to eukaryotic viral sequences, as determined by GenBank database. A number of known and unknown representatives of Adenoviridae, Anelloviridae, Astroviridae, Caliciviridae, Circoviridae, Parvoviridae, Picobirnaviridae, Picornaviridae and Reoviridae, as well as novel uncharacterized CRESS-DNA viruses, were identified. However, the distribution of sequence reads of viral genomes identified in diseased or healthy birds revealed no statistically significant differences. These findings indicate no association between the occurrence of MAS and enteric viruses. The viral genomes reported in the present study, including a variety of novel viruses, seem part of the normal intestinal microbiota of chickens.

Viral infections and breast cancer - A current perspective

Sporadic human breast cancer is the most common cancer to afflict women. Since the discovery, decades ago, of the oncogenic mouse mammary tumour virus, there has been significant interest in the potential aetiologic role of infectious agents in sporadic human breast cancer. To address this, many studies have examined the presence of viruses (e.g. papillomaviruses, herpes viruses and retroviruses), endogenous retroviruses and more recently, microbes, as a means of implicating them in the aetiology of human breast cancer. Such studies have generated conflicting experimental and clinical reports of the role of infection in breast cancer. This review evaluates the current evidence for a productive oncogenic viral infection in human breast cancer, with a focus on the integration of sensitive and specific next generation sequencing technologies with pathogen discovery. Collectively, the majority of the recent literature using the more powerful next generation sequencing technologies fail to support an oncogenic viral infection being involved in disease causality in breast cancer. In balance, the weight of the current experimental evidence supports the conclusion that viral infection is unlikely to play a significant role in the aetiology of breast cancer.

A decade of RNA virus metagenomics is (not) enough

It is hard to overemphasize the role that metagenomics has had on our recent understanding of RNA virus diversity. Metagenomics in the 21st century has brought with it an explosion in the number of RNA virus species, genera, and families far exceeding that following the discovery of the microscope in the 18th century for eukaryotic life or culture media in the 19th century for bacteriology or the 20th century for virology. When the definition of success in organism discovery is measured by sequence diversity and evolutionary distance, RNA viruses win. This review explores the history of RNA virus metagenomics, reasons for the successes so far in RNA virus metagenomics, and methodological concerns. In addition, the review briefly covers clinical metagenomics and environmental metagenomics and highlights some of the critical accomplishments that have defined the fast pace of RNA virus discoveries in recent years. Slightly more than a decade in, the field is exhausted from its discoveries but knows that there is yet even more out there to be found.

Discovering viral genomes in human metagenomic data by predicting unknown protein families

Massive amounts of metagenomics data are currently being produced, and in all such projects a sizeable fraction of the resulting data shows no or little homology to known sequences. It is likely that this fraction contains novel viruses, but identification is challenging since they frequently lack homology to known viruses. To overcome this problem, we developed a strategy to detect ORFan protein families in shotgun metagenomics data, using similarity-based clustering and a set of filters to extract bona fide protein families. We applied this method to 17 virus-enriched libraries originating from human nasopharyngeal aspirates, serum, feces, and cerebrospinal fluid samples. This resulted in 32 predicted putative novel gene families. Some families showed detectable homology to sequences in metagenomics datasets and protein databases after reannotation. Notably, one predicted family matches an ORF from the highly variable Torque Teno virus (TTV). Furthermore, follow-up from a predicted ORFan resulted in the complete reconstruction of a novel circular genome. Its organisation suggests that it most likely corresponds to a novel bacteriophage in the microviridae family, hence it was named bacteriophage HFM.

Single primer isothermal amplification (SPIA) combined with next generation sequencing provides complete bovine coronavirus genome coverage and higher sequence depth compared to sequence-independent single primer amplification (SISPA)

Coronaviruses are of major importance for both animal and human health. With the emergence of novel coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS, the need for fast genome characterisation is ever so important. Further, in order to understand the influence of quasispecies of these viruses in relation to biology, techniques for deep-sequence and full-length viral genome analysis are needed. In the present study, we compared the efficiency of two sequence-independent approaches [sequence-independent single primer amplification (SISPA) and single primer isothermal amplification (SPIA, represented by the Ovation kit)] coupled with high-throughput sequencing to generate the full-length genome of bovine coronavirus (BCoV) from a nasal swab. Both methods achieved high genome coverage (100% for SPIA and 99% for SISPA), however, there was a clear difference in the percentage of reads that mapped to BCoV. While approximately 45% of the Ovation reads mapped to BCoV (sequence depth of 169-284 944), only 0.07% of the SISPA reads (sequence depth of 0-249) mapped to the reference genome. Although BCoV was the focus of the study we also identified a bovine rhinitis B virus (BRBV) in the data sets. The trend for this virus was similar to that observed for BCoV regarding Ovation vs. SISPA, but with fewer sequences mapping to BRBV due to a lower amount of this virus. In summary, the SPIA approach used in this study produced coverage of the entire BCoV (high copy number) and BRBV (low copy number) and a high sequence/genome depth compared to SISPA. Although this is a limited study, the results indicate that the Ovation method could be a preferred approach for full genome sequencing if a low copy number of viral RNA is expected and if high sequence depth is desired.

Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia in Critically Ill Children: A New Paradigm

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a serious complication of critical illness. Surveillance definitions have undergone revisions for more objective and consistent reporting. The 1 organism-1 disease paradigm for microbial involvement may not adequately apply to many cases of VAP, in which pathogens are introduced to a pre-existing and often complex microbial community that facilitates or hinders the potential pathogen, consequently determining whether progression to VAP occurs. As omics technology is applied to VAP, a paradigm is emerging incorporating simultaneous assessments of microbial populations and their activity, as well as the host response, to personalize prevention and treatment.

In Silico Probe-Based Detection of Citrus Viruses in NGS Data

The conservation of plant biosecurity relies on the rapid identification of pathogenic organisms, including viruses. With next-generation sequencing (NGS), it is possible to identify multiple viruses within a metagenomic sample. In this study, we explored the use of electronic probes (e-probes) for the simultaneous detection of 11 recognized citrus viruses. E-probes were designed and screened against raw sequencing data to minimize the bioinformatic processing time required. The e-probes were able to accurately detect their cognate viruses in simulated datasets, without any false negatives or positives. The efficiency of the e-probe-based approach was validated with NGS datasets generated from different RNA preparations: double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) from 'Mexican' lime infected with different Citrus tristeza virus (CTV) genotypes, dsRNA from field samples, and small RNA and total RNA from grapefruit infected with the CTV T3 genotype. A set of probes was made available that is able to accurately detect CTV in sequence data regardless of the input dataset or the genotype that plants are infected with.

A viral metagenomic approach on a non-metagenomic experiment: Mining next generation sequencing datasets from pig DNA identified several porcine parvoviruses for a retrospective evaluation of viral infections

Shot-gun next generation sequencing (NGS) on whole DNA extracted from specimens collected from mammals often produces reads that are not mapped (i.e. unmapped reads) on the host reference genome and that are usually discarded as by-products of the experiments. In this study, we mined Ion Torrent reads obtained by sequencing DNA isolated from archived blood samples collected from 100 performance tested Italian Large White pigs. Two reduced representation libraries were prepared from two DNA pools constructed each from 50 equimolar DNA samples. Bioinformatic analyses were carried out to mine unmapped reads on the reference pig genome that were obtained from the two NGS datasets. In silico analyses included read mapping and sequence assembly approaches for a viral metagenomic analysis using the NCBI Viral Genome Resource. Our approach identified sequences matching several viruses of the Parvoviridae family: porcine parvovirus 2 (PPV2), PPV4, PPV5 and PPV6 and porcine bocavirus 1-H18 isolate (PBoV1-H18). The presence of these viruses was confirmed by PCR and Sanger sequencing of individual DNA samples. PPV2, PPV4, PPV5, PPV6 and PBoV1-H18 were all identified in samples collected in 1998-2007, 1998-2000, 1997-2000, 1998-2004 and 2003, respectively. For most of these viruses (PPV4, PPV5, PPV6 and PBoV1-H18) previous studies reported their first occurrence much later (from 5 to more than 10 years) than our identification period and in different geographic areas. Our study provided a retrospective evaluation of apparently asymptomatic parvovirus infected pigs providing information that could be important to define occurrence and prevalence of different parvoviruses in South Europe. This study demonstrated the potential of mining NGS datasets non-originally derived by metagenomics experiments for viral metagenomics analyses in a livestock species.

Molecular approaches to the diagnosis and monitoring of production diseases in pigs

Production disease in pigs is caused by a variety of different pathogens, mainly enteric and respiratory and can result in significant economic loss. Other factors such as stress, poor husbandry and nutrition can also contribute to an animal's susceptibility to disease. Molecular biomarkers of production disease could be of immense value by improving diagnosis and risk analysis to determine best practice with an impact on increased economic output and animal welfare. In addition to the use of multiplex PCR or microarrays to detect individual or mixed pathogens during infection, these technologies can also be used to monitor the host response to infection via gene expression. The patterns of gene expression associated with cellular damage or initiation of the early immune response may indicate the type of pathology and, by extension the types of pathogen involved. Molecular methods can therefore be used to monitor both the presence of a pathogen and the host response to it during production disease. The field of biomarker discovery and implementation is expanding as technologies such as microarrays and next generation sequencing become more common. Whilst a large number of studies have been carried out in human medicine, further work is needed to identify molecular biomarkers in veterinary medicine and in particular those associated with production disease in the pig industry. The pig transcriptome is highly complex and still not fully understood. Further gene expression studies are needed to identify molecular biomarkers which may have predictive value in identifying the environmental, nutritional and other risk factors which are associated with production diseases in pigs.

Culture-Independent Diagnostics for Health Security

The past decade has seen considerable development in the diagnostic application of nonculture methods, including nucleic acid amplification-based methods and mass spectrometry, for the diagnosis of infectious diseases. The implications of these new culture-independent diagnostic tests (CIDTs) include bypassing the need to culture organisms, thus potentially affecting public health surveillance systems, which continue to use isolates as the basis of their surveillance programs and to assess phenotypic resistance to antimicrobial agents. CIDTs may also affect the way public health practitioners detect and respond to a bioterrorism event. In response to a request from the Department of Homeland Security, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cosponsored a workshop to review the impact of CIDTs on the rapid detection and identification of biothreat agents. Four panel discussions were held that covered nucleic acid amplification-based diagnostics, mass spectrometry, antibody-based diagnostics, and next-generation sequencing. Exploiting the extensive expertise available at this workshop, we identified the key features, benefits, and limitations of the various CIDT methods for providing rapid pathogen identification that are critical to the response and mitigation of a bioterrorism event. After the workshop we conducted a thorough review of the literature, investigating the current state of these 4 culture-independent diagnostic methods. This article combines information from the literature review and the insights obtained at the workshop.

Diagnostic Tools for Bluetongue and Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease Viruses Applicable to North American Veterinary Diagnosticians

This review provides an overview of current and potential new diagnostic tests for bluetongue (BT) and epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) viruses compiled from international participants of the Orbivirus Gap Analysis Workshop, Diagnostic Group. The emphasis of this review is on diagnostic tools available to North American veterinary diagnosticians. Standard diagnostic tests are readily available for BT/EHD viruses, and there are described tests that are published in the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) Terrestrial Manual. There is however considerable variation in the diagnostic approach to these viruses. Serological assays are well established, and many laboratories are experienced in running these assays. Numerous nucleic acid amplification assays are also available for BT virus (BTV) and EHD virus (EHDV). Although there is considerable experience with BTV reverse-transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR), there are no standards or comparisons of the protocols used by various state and federal veterinary diagnostic laboratories. Methods for genotyping BTV and EHDV isolates are available and are valuable tools for monitoring and analyzing circulating viruses. These methods include RT-PCR panels or arrays, RT-PCR and sequencing of specific genome segments, or the use of next-generation sequencing. In addition to enabling virus characterization, use of advanced molecular detection methods, including DNA microarrays and next-generation sequencing, significantly enhance the ability to detect unique virus strains that may arise through genetic drift, recombination, or viral genome segment reassortment, as well as incursions of new virus strains from other geographical areas.

GenSeed-HMM: A Tool for Progressive Assembly Using Profile HMMs as Seeds and its Application in Alpavirinae Viral Discovery from Metagenomic Data

This work reports the development of GenSeed-HMM, a program that implements seed-driven progressive assembly, an approach to reconstruct specific sequences from unassembled data, starting from short nucleotide or protein seed sequences or profile Hidden Markov Models (HMM). The program can use any one of a number of sequence assemblers. Assembly is performed in multiple steps and relatively few reads are used in each cycle, consequently the program demands low computational resources. As a proof-of-concept and to demonstrate the power of HMM-driven progressive assemblies, GenSeed-HMM was applied to metagenomic datasets in the search for diverse ssDNA bacteriophages from the recently described Alpavirinae subfamily. Profile HMMs were built using Alpavirinae-specific regions from multiple sequence alignments (MSA) using either the viral protein 1 (VP1; major capsid protein) or VP4 (genome replication initiation protein). These profile HMMs were used by GenSeed-HMM (running Newbler assembler) as seeds to reconstruct viral genomes from sequencing datasets of human fecal samples. All contigs obtained were annotated and taxonomically classified using similarity searches and phylogenetic analyses. The most specific profile HMM seed enabled the reconstruction of 45 partial or complete Alpavirinae genomic sequences. A comparison with conventional (global) assembly of the same original dataset, using Newbler in a standalone execution, revealed that GenSeed-HMM outperformed global genomic assembly in several metrics employed. This approach is capable of detecting organisms that have not been used in the construction of the profile HMM, which opens up the possibility of diagnosing novel viruses, without previous specific information, constituting a de novo diagnosis. Additional applications include, but are not limited to, the specific assembly of extrachromosomal elements such as plastid and mitochondrial genomes from metagenomic data. Profile HMM seeds can also be used to reconstruct specific protein coding genes for gene diversity studies, and to determine all possible gene variants present in a metagenomic sample. Such surveys could be useful to detect the emergence of drug-resistance variants in sensitive environments such as hospitals and animal production facilities, where antibiotics are regularly used. Finally, GenSeed-HMM can be used as an adjunct for gap closure on assembly finishing projects, by using multiple contig ends as anchored seeds.

Direct next-generation sequencing of virus-human mixed samples without pretreatment is favorable to recover virus genome

Abstract

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) enables the recovery of pathogen genomes from clinical samples without the need for culturing. Depletion of host/microbiota components (e.g., ribosomal RNA and poly-A RNA) and whole DNA/cDNA amplification are routine methods to improve recovery results. Using mixtures of human and influenza A virus (H1N1) RNA as a model, we found that background depletion and whole transcriptome amplification introduced biased distributions of read coverage over the H1N1 genome, thereby hampering genome assembly. Influenza serotyping was also affected by pretreatments. We propose that direct sequencing of noncultured samples without pretreatment is a favorable option for pathogen genome recovery applications.

Reviewer

This article was reviewed by Sebastian Maurer-Stroh.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13062-016-0105-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

No association between HPV positive breast cancer and expression of human papilloma viral transcripts

Infectious agents are thought to be responsible for approximately 16% of cancers worldwide, however there are mixed reports in the literature as to the prevalence and potential pathogenicity of viruses in breast cancer. Furthermore, most studies to date have focused primarily on viral DNA rather than the expression of viral transcripts. We screened a large cohort of fresh frozen breast cancer and normal breast tissue specimens collected from patients in Australia for the presence of human papilloma virus (HPV) DNA, with an overall prevalence of HPV of 16% and 10% in malignant and non-malignant tissue respectively. Samples that were positive for HPV DNA by nested PCR were screened by RNA-sequencing for the presence of transcripts of viral origin, using three different bioinformatic pipelines. We did not find any evidence for HPV or other viral transcripts in HPV DNA positive samples. In addition, we also screened publicly available breast RNA-seq data sets for the presence of viral transcripts and did not find any evidence for the expression of viral transcripts (HPV or otherwise) in other data sets. This data suggests that transcription of viral genomes is unlikely to be a significant factor in breast cancer pathogenesis.

Next-generation sequencing in clinical virology: Discovery of new viruses

Viruses are a cause of significant health problem worldwide, especially in the developing nations. Due to different anthropological activities, human populations are exposed to different viral pathogens, many of which emerge as outbreaks. In such situations, discovery of novel viruses is utmost important for deciding prevention and treatment strategies. Since last century, a number of different virus discovery methods, based on cell culture inoculation, sequence-independent PCR have been used for identification of a variety of viruses. However, the recent emergence and commercial availability of next-generation sequencers (NGS) has entirely changed the field of virus discovery. These massively parallel sequencing platforms can sequence a mixture of genetic materials from a very heterogeneous mix, with high sensitivity. Moreover, these platforms work in a sequence-independent manner, making them ideal tools for virus discovery. However, for their application in clinics, sample preparation or enrichment is necessary to detect low abundance virus populations. A number of techniques have also been developed for enrichment or viral nucleic acids. In this manuscript, we review the evolution of sequencing; NGS technologies available today as well as widely used virus enrichment technologies. We also discuss the challenges associated with their applications in the clinical virus discovery.

Target-dependent enrichment of virions determines the reduction of high-throughput sequencing in virus discovery

Viral infections cause many different diseases stemming both from well-characterized viral pathogens but also from emerging viruses, and the search for novel viruses continues to be of great importance. High-throughput sequencing is an important technology for this purpose. However, viral nucleic acids often constitute a minute proportion of the total genetic material in a sample from infected tissue. Techniques to enrich viral targets in high-throughput sequencing have been reported, but the sensitivity of such methods is not well established. This study compares different library preparation techniques targeting both DNA and RNA with and without virion enrichment. By optimizing the selection of intact virus particles, both by physical and enzymatic approaches, we assessed the effectiveness of the specific enrichment of viral sequences as compared to non-enriched sample preparations by selectively looking for and counting read sequences obtained from shotgun sequencing. Using shotgun sequencing of total DNA or RNA, viral targets were detected at concentrations corresponding to the predicted level, providing a foundation for estimating the effectiveness of virion enrichment. Virion enrichment typically produced a 1000-fold increase in the proportion of DNA virus sequences. For RNA virions the gain was less pronounced with a maximum 13-fold increase. This enrichment varied between the different sample concentrations, with no clear trend. Despite that less sequencing was required to identify target sequences, it was not evident from our data that a lower detection level was achieved by virion enrichment compared to shotgun sequencing.

Tales from the crypt and coral reef: the successes and challenges of identifying new herpesviruses using metagenomics

Herpesviruses are ubiquitous double-stranded DNA viruses infecting many animals, with the capacity to cause disease in both immunocompetent and immunocompromised hosts. Different herpesviruses have different cell tropisms, and have been detected in a diverse range of tissues and sample types. Metagenomics—encompassing viromics—analyses the nucleic acid of a tissue or other sample in an unbiased manner, making few or no prior assumptions about which viruses may be present in a sample. This approach has successfully discovered a number of novel herpesviruses. Furthermore, metagenomic analysis can identify herpesviruses with high degrees of sequence divergence from known herpesviruses and does not rely upon culturing large quantities of viral material. Metagenomics has had success in two areas of herpesvirus sequencing: firstly, the discovery of novel exogenous and endogenous herpesviruses in primates, bats and cnidarians; and secondly, in characterizing large areas of the genomes of herpesviruses previously only known from small fragments, revealing unexpected diversity. This review will discuss the successes and challenges of using metagenomics to identify novel herpesviruses, and future directions within the field.

Mining for viral fragments in methylation enriched sequencing data

Most next generation sequencing experiments generate more data than is usable for the experimental set up. For example, methyl-CpG binding domain (MBD) affinity purification based sequencing is often used for DNA-methylation profiling, but up to 30% of the sequenced fragments cannot be mapped uniquely to the reference genome. Here we present and evaluate a methodology for the identification of viruses in these otherwise unused paired-end MBD-seq data. Viral detection is accomplished by mapping non-reference alignable reads to a comprehensive set of viral genomes. As viruses play an important role in epigenetics and cancer development, 92 (pre)malignant and benign samples, originating from two different collections of cervical samples and related cell lines, were used in this study. These samples include primary carcinomas (n = 22), low- and high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN1 and CIN2/3 - n = 2/n = 30) and normal tissue (n = 20), as well as control samples (n = 17). Viruses that were detected include phages, adenoviruses, herpesviridae and HPV. HPV, which causes virtually all cervical cancers, was identified in 95% of the carcinomas, 100% of the CIN2/3 samples, both CIN1 samples and in 55% of the normal samples. Comparing the amount of mapped fragments on HPV for each HPV-infected sample yielded a significant difference between normal samples and carcinomas or CIN2/3 samples (adjusted p-values resp. <10(-5), <10(-5)), reflecting different viral loads and/or methylation degrees in non-normal samples. Fragments originating from different HPV types could be distinguished and were independently validated by PCR-based assays in 71% of the detections. In conclusion, although limited by the a priori knowledge of viral reference genome sequences, the proposed methodology can provide a first confined but substantial insight into the presence, concentration and types of methylated viral sequences in MBD-seq data at low additional cost.

A review approaches to identify enteric bacterial pathogens

CONTEXT

Diarrhea is a common disease across the world. According to WHO, every year about two billion cases of diarrhea are reported in the world. It occurs mainly in the tropical regions and is a main cause of morbidity and mortality, particularly in young children and adults.

EVIDENCE ACQUISITION

One of the major causes of diarrheal diseases is bacteria; detection of pathogenic bacteria is a global key to the prevention and identification of food-borne diseases and enteric infections (like diarrhea).

CONCLUSIONS

Therefore, development of rapid diagnostic methods with suitable sensitivity and specificity is very important about this infectious disease. In this review, we will discuss some of the important diagnostic methods.

Molecular identification of erythrocytic necrosis virus (ENV) from the blood of Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii)

Viral erythrocytic necrosis (VEN) is a condition affecting the red blood cells of more than 20 species of marine and anadromous fishes in the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans. Among populations of Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) on the west coast of North America the disease causes anemia and elevated mortality in periodic epizootics. Presently, VEN is diagnosed by observation of typical cytoplasmic inclusion bodies in stained blood smears from infected fish. The causative agent, erythrocytic necrosis virus (ENV), is unculturable and a presumed iridovirus by electron microscopy. In vivo amplification of the virus in pathogen-free laboratory stocks of Pacific herring with subsequent virus concentration, purification, DNA extraction, and high-throughput sequencing were used to obtain genomic ENV sequences. Fragments with the highest sequence identity to the family Iridoviridae were used to design four sets of ENV-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers. Testing of blood and tissue samples from experimentally and wild infected Pacific herring as well as DNA extracted from other amphibian and piscine iridoviruses verified the assays were specific to ENV with a limit of detection of 0.0003 ng. Preliminary phylogenetic analyses of a 1448 bp fragment of the putative DNA polymerase gene supported inclusion of ENV in a proposed sixth genus of the family Iridoviridae that contains other erythrocytic viruses from ectothermic hosts. This study provides the first molecular evidence of ENV's inclusion within the Iridoviridae family and offers conventional PCR assays as a means of rapidly surveying the ENV-status of wild and propagated Pacific herring stocks.

Next-generation sequencing in veterinary medicine: how can the massive amount of information arising from high-throughput technologies improve diagnosis, control, and management of infectious diseases?

The development of high-throughput molecular technologies and associated bioinformatics has dramatically changed the capacities of scientists to produce, handle, and analyze large amounts of genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data. A clear example of this step-change is represented by the amount of DNA sequence data that can be now produced using next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms. Similarly, recent improvements in protein and peptide separation efficiencies and highly accurate mass spectrometry have promoted the identification and quantification of proteins in a given sample. These advancements in biotechnology have increasingly been applied to the study of animal infectious diseases and are beginning to revolutionize the way that biological and evolutionary processes can be studied at the molecular level. Studies have demonstrated the value of NGS technologies for molecular characterization, ranging from metagenomic characterization of unknown pathogens or microbial communities to molecular epidemiology and evolution of viral quasispecies. Moreover, high-throughput technologies now allow detailed studies of host-pathogen interactions at the level of their genomes (genomics), transcriptomes (transcriptomics), or proteomes (proteomics). Ultimately, the interaction between pathogen and host biological networks can be questioned by analytically integrating these levels (integrative OMICS and systems biology). The application of high-throughput biotechnology platforms in these fields and their typical low-cost per information content has revolutionized the resolution with which these processes can now be studied. The aim of this chapter is to provide a current and prospective view on the opportunities and challenges associated with the application of massive parallel sequencing technologies to veterinary medicine, with particular focus on applications that have a potential impact on disease control and management.

Absence of cytomegalovirus in high-coverage DNA sequencing of human glioblastoma multiforme

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) has been proposed to be associated with glioblastoma multiforme, but there are conflicting results including lack of CMV mRNA in transcriptome sequencing data. Here, we utilized deep-coverage whole-genome sequencing data to detect latent CMV DNA in surgically resected tumors and to assess the relative proportions of viral and human DNA. We did not find traces of CMV in 52.6 billion DNA sequencing reads from 34 glioblastomas. By statistical analysis, we conclude that should the virus be present in these tumors, the average CMV level does not exceed one virus per 240,000 tumor cells (99% CI).

Identification of recently described porcine parvoviruses in archived North American samples from 1996 and association with porcine circovirus associated disease

The association of porcine circovirus (PCV) type 2 and porcine parvovirus (PPV) type 1 as a cause of porcine circovirus associated disease (PCVAD) is well established. The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence rates of classical PPV1 and recently recognized PPV2-5 in serum and lung samples from pigs and farms with known PCV2 status. A total of 586 serum samples and 164 lung homogenates collected from 1996 to 2013 in the USA and Canada were utilized. All samples were tested for PPV1-5 and PCV2. PCV2 was detected in 27.7% (162/586) and PPV in 48.8% (286/586) of the serum samples, whereas 78.7% (129/164) of the lung tissues were positive for PCV2 and 56.7% (93/164) were positive for PPV. Overall, PPV2 had the highest prevalence rates in sera (35.2%) and tissues (42.7%). Concurrent infection of PCV2 and PPV occurred in 14.3% (84/586) of the serum samples and in 49.4% (81/164) of the tissue samples. Moreover, the prevalence of PPV1 or PPV2 DNA was significantly higher in tissues containing high amounts of PCV2 DNA compared to non-PCVAD cases. The frequency of concurrent PPV/PCV2 infection was higher for PCVAD herds compared to negative or subclinically infected herds. PPV2, PPV3 and PPV4 were all identified in samples collected in 1998 and PPV5 was first identified in 2006. The obtained findings indicate that similar to PCV2, PPVs are widespread in North American pigs. Nevertheless, diagnostic investigations into PCVAD cases should give more consideration to the role of PPV1 and PPV2 as contributing cofactors.

The microbial detection array for detection of emerging viruses in clinical samples--a useful panmicrobial diagnostic tool

Emerging viruses are usually endemic to tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world, but increased global travel, climate change and changes in lifestyle are believed to contribute to the spread of these viruses into new regions. Many of these viruses cause similar disease symptoms as other emerging viruses or common infections, making these unexpected pathogens difficult to diagnose. Broad-spectrum pathogen detection microarrays containing probes for all sequenced viruses and bacteria can provide rapid identification of viruses, guiding decisions about treatment and appropriate case management. We report a modified Whole Transcriptome Amplification (WTA) method that increases unbiased amplification, particular of RNA viruses. Using this modified WTA method, we tested the specificity and sensitivity of the Lawrence Livermore Microbial Detection Array (LLMDA) against a wide range of emerging viruses present in both non-clinical and clinical samples using two different microarray data analysis methods.

Viral metagenomics on animals as a tool for the detection of zoonoses prior to human infection?

Many human viral infections have a zoonotic, i.e., wild or domestic animal, origin. Several zoonotic viruses are transmitted to humans directly via contact with an animal or indirectly via exposure to the urine or feces of infected animals or the bite of a bloodsucking arthropod. If a virus is able to adapt and replicate in its new human host, human-to-human transmissions may occur, possibly resulting in an epidemic, such as the A/H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009. Thus, predicting emerging zoonotic infections is an important challenge for public health officials in the coming decades. The recent development of viral metagenomics, i.e., the characterization of the complete viral diversity isolated from an organism or an environment using high-throughput sequencing technologies, is promising for the surveillance of such diseases and can be accomplished by analyzing the viromes of selected animals and arthropods that are closely in contact with humans. In this review, we summarize our current knowledge of viral diversity within such animals (in particular blood-feeding arthropods, wildlife and domestic animals) using metagenomics and present its possible future application for the surveillance of zoonotic and arboviral diseases.

Antigenic and genetic characterization of a divergent African virus, Ikoma lyssavirus

In 2009, a novel lyssavirus (subsequently named Ikoma lyssavirus, IKOV) was detected in the brain of an African civet (Civettictis civetta) with clinical rabies in the Serengeti National Park of Tanzania. The degree of nucleotide divergence between the genome of IKOV and those of other lyssaviruses predicted antigenic distinction from, and lack of protection provided by, available rabies vaccines. In addition, the index case was considered likely to be an incidental spillover event, and therefore the true reservoir of IKOV remained to be identified. The advent of sensitive molecular techniques has led to a rapid increase in the discovery of novel viruses. Detecting viral sequence alone, however, only allows for prediction of phenotypic characteristics and not their measurement. In the present study we describe the in vitro and in vivo characterization of IKOV, demonstrating that it is (1) pathogenic by peripheral inoculation in an animal model, (2) antigenically distinct from current rabies vaccine strains and (3) poorly neutralized by sera from humans and animals immunized against rabies. In a laboratory mouse model, no protection was elicited by a licensed rabies vaccine. We also investigated the role of bats as reservoirs of IKOV. We found no evidence for infection among 483 individuals of at least 13 bat species sampled across sites in the Serengeti and Southern Kenya.

Canine hepacivirus is not associated with chronic liver disease in dogs

Canine hepacivirus (CHV) has recently been identified in liver and respiratory tract samples from dogs, and comparative phylogenetic analysis has confirmed it to be the closest genetic relative of hepatitis C virus (HCV) described to date. CHV offers great potential as a model system for HCV, but only if the underlying processes of infection and pathogenesis are similar for both viruses. However, it is not yet clear if CHV is hepatotrophic. Canine chronic hepatitis (CH) is a common and usually idiopathic disease that shares similar histological features to that of HCV infection of humans. To date, no study has attempted to determine whether CHV is involved in the aetiology of liver disease in dogs. We employed two nested PCR assays, using primers targeting regions of the helicase domain of CHV NS3, to identify viral nucleic acids in liver samples from 100 dogs with CH of unknown cause in the UK. We also used a sensitive luciferase immunoprecipitation system (LIPS) assay to screen serum samples from these dogs for the presence of anti-CHV antibodies. Surprisingly, there was no evidence of exposure to, or a carrier state of, CHV in this large cohort, suggesting that the virus is not associated with CH in UK dogs. Future work, including transmission studies, is required to understand the pathogenesis of CHV in canids before it can be proposed as a surrogate model for HCV-induced liver disease in man.

Circovirus in tissues of dogs with vasculitis and hemorrhage

We characterized the complete genome of a novel dog circovirus (DogCV) from the liver of a dog with severe hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, vasculitis, and granulomatous lymphadenitis. DogCV was detected by PCR in fecal samples from 19/168 (11.3%) dogs with diarrhea and 14/204 (6.9%) healthy dogs and in blood from 19/409 (3.3%) of dogs with thrombocytopenia and neutropenia, fever of unknown origin, or past tick bite. Co-infection with other canine pathogens was detected for 13/19 (68%) DogCV-positive dogs with diarrhea. DogCV capsid proteins from different dogs varied by up to 8%. In situ hybridization and transmission electron microscopy detected DogCV in the lymph nodes and spleens of 4 dogs with vascular compromise and histiocytic inflammation. The detection of a circovirus in tissues of dogs expands the known tropism of these viruses to a second mammalian host. Our results indicate that circovirus, alone or in co-infection with other pathogens, might contribute to illness and death in dogs.

Sensitive detection of viral transcripts in human tumor transcriptomes

In excess of % of human cancer incidents have a viral cofactor. Epidemiological studies of idiopathic human cancers indicate that additional tumor viruses remain to be discovered. Recent advances in sequencing technology have enabled systematic screenings of human tumor transcriptomes for viral transcripts. However, technical problems such as low abundances of viral transcripts in large volumes of sequencing data, viral sequence divergence, and homology between viral and human factors significantly confound identification of tumor viruses. We have developed a novel computational approach for detecting viral transcripts in human cancers that takes the aforementioned confounding factors into account and is applicable to a wide variety of viruses and tumors. We apply the approach to conducting the first systematic search for viruses in neuroblastoma, the most common cancer in infancy. The diverse clinical progression of this disease as well as related epidemiological and virological findings are highly suggestive of a pathogenic cofactor. However, a viral etiology of neuroblastoma is currently contested. We mapped transcriptomes of neuroblastoma as well as positive and negative controls to the human and all known viral genomes in order to detect both known and unknown viruses. Analysis of controls, comparisons with related methods, and statistical estimates demonstrate the high sensitivity of our approach. Detailed investigation of putative viral transcripts within neuroblastoma samples did not provide evidence for the existence of any known human viruses. Likewise, de-novo assembly and analysis of chimeric transcripts did not result in expression signatures associated with novel human pathogens. While confounding factors such as sample dilution or viral clearance in progressed tumors may mask viral cofactors in the data, in principle, this is rendered less likely by the high sensitivity of our approach and the number of biological replicates analyzed. Therefore, our results suggest that frequent viral cofactors of metastatic neuroblastoma are unlikely.

Many human cancers are caused by infections with tumor viruses and identification of these pathogens is considered a critical contribution to cancer prevention. Deep sequencing enables us to systematically investigate viral nucleotide signatures in order to either verify or exclude the existence of viruses in idiopathic human cancers. We have developed Virana, a novel computational approach for identifying tumor viruses in human cancers that is applicable to a wide variety of tumors and viruses. Virana firstly addresses several important biological confounding factors that may hinder successful detection of these pathogens. We applied our approach in the first systematic search for cancer-causing viruses in metastatic neuroblastoma, the most common form of cancer in infancy. Although the heterogeneous clinical progression of this disease as well as epidemiological and virological findings are suggestive of a pathogenic cofactor, the viral etiology of neuroblastoma is currently contested. We conducted an analysis of experimental controls, comparisons with related approaches, as well as statistical analyses in order to validate our method. In spite of the high sensitivity of our approach, analyses of neuroblastoma transcriptomes did not provide evidence for the existence of any known or unknown human viruses. Our results therefore suggest that frequent viral cofactors of metastatic neuroblastoma are unlikely.

The origin of biased sequence depth in sequence-independent nucleic acid amplification and optimization for efficient massive parallel sequencing

Sequence Independent Single Primer Amplification is one of the most widely used random amplification approaches in virology for sequencing template preparation. This technique relies on oligonucleotides consisting of a 3' random part used to prime complementary DNA synthesis and a 5' defined tag sequence for subsequent amplification. Recently, this amplification method was combined with next generation sequencing to obtain viral sequences. However, these studies showed a biased distribution of the resulting sequence reads over the analyzed genomes. The aim of this study was to elucidate the mechanisms that lead to biased sequence depth when using random amplification. Avian paramyxovirus type 8 was used as a model RNA virus to investigate these mechanisms. We showed, based on in silico analysis of the sequence depth in relation to GC-content, predicted RNA secondary structure and sequence complementarity to the 3' part of the tag sequence, that the tag sequence has the main contribution to the observed bias in sequence depth. We confirmed this finding experimentally using both fragmented and non-fragmented viral RNAs as well as primers differing in random oligomer length (6 or 12 nucleotides) and in the sequence of the amplification tag. The observed oligonucleotide annealing bias can be reduced by extending the random oligomer sequence and by in silico combining sequence data from SISPA experiments using different 5' defined tag sequences. These findings contribute to the optimization of random nucleic acid amplification protocols that are currently required for downstream applications such as viral metagenomics and microarray analysis.

Next-generation sequencing technology in clinical virology

Recent advances in nucleic acid sequencing technologies, referred to as 'next-generation' sequencing (NGS), have produced a true revolution and opened new perspectives for research and diagnostic applications, owing to the high speed and throughput of data generation. So far, NGS has been applied to metagenomics-based strategies for the discovery of novel viruses and the characterization of viral communities. Additional applications include whole viral genome sequencing, detection of viral genome variability, and the study of viral dynamics. These applications are particularly suitable for viruses such as human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis B virus, and hepatitis C virus, whose error-prone replication machinery, combined with the high replication rate, results, in each infected individual, in the formation of many genetically related viral variants referred to as quasi-species. The viral quasi-species, in turn, represents the substrate for the selective pressure exerted by the immune system or by antiviral drugs. With traditional approaches, it is difficult to detect and quantify minority genomes present in viral quasi-species that, in fact, may have biological and clinical relevance. NGS provides, for each patient, a dataset of clonal sequences that is some order of magnitude higher than those obtained with conventional approaches. Hence, NGS is an extremely powerful tool with which to investigate previously inaccessible aspects of viral dynamics, such as the contribution of different viral reservoirs to replicating virus in the course of the natural history of the infection, co-receptor usage in minority viral populations harboured by different cell lineages, the dynamics of development of drug resistance, and the re-emergence of hidden genomes after treatment interruptions. The diagnostic application of NGS is just around the corner.

New strategy for virus discovery: viruses identified in human feces in the last decade

Emerging and re-emerging viruses continue to surface all over the world. Some of these viruses have the potential for rapid and global spread with high morbidity and mortality, such as the SARS coronavirus outbreak. It is extremely urgent and important to identify a novel virus near-instantaneously to develop an active preventive and/or control strategy. As a culture-independent approach, viral metagenomics has been widely used to investigate highly divergent and completely new viruses in humans, animals, and even environmental samples in the past decade. A new model of Koch’s postulates, named the metagenomic Koch’s postulates, has provided guidance for the study of the pathogenicity of novel viruses. This review explains the viral metagenomics strategy for virus discovery and describes viruses discovered in human feces in the past 10 years using this approach. This review also addresses issues related to the metagenomic Koch’s postulates and the challenges for virus discovery in the future.

Landscape of DNA virus associations across human malignant cancers: analysis of 3,775 cases using RNA-Seq

Elucidation of tumor-DNA virus associations in many cancer types has enhanced our knowledge of fundamental oncogenesis mechanisms and provided a basis for cancer prevention initiatives. RNA-Seq is a novel tool to comprehensively assess such associations. We interrogated RNA-Seq data from 3,775 malignant neoplasms in The Cancer Genome Atlas database for the presence of viral sequences. Viral integration sites were also detected in expressed transcripts using a novel approach. The detection capacity of RNA-Seq was compared to available clinical laboratory data. Human papillomavirus (HPV) transcripts were detected using RNA-Seq analysis in head-and-neck squamous cell carcinoma, uterine endometrioid carcinoma, and squamous cell carcinoma of the lung. Detection of HPV by RNA-Seq correlated with detection by in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry in squamous cell carcinoma tumors of the head and neck. Hepatitis B virus and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) were detected using RNA-Seq in hepatocellular carcinoma and gastric carcinoma tumors, respectively. Integration sites of viral genes and oncogenes were detected in cancers harboring HPV or hepatitis B virus but not in EBV-positive gastric carcinoma. Integration sites of expressed viral transcripts frequently involved known coding areas of the host genome. No DNA virus transcripts were detected in acute myeloid leukemia, cutaneous melanoma, low- and high-grade gliomas of the brain, and adenocarcinomas of the breast, colon and rectum, lung, prostate, ovary, kidney, and thyroid. In conclusion, this study provides a large-scale overview of the landscape of DNA viruses in human malignant cancers. While further validation is necessary for specific cancer types, our findings highlight the utility of RNA-Seq in detecting tumor-associated DNA viruses and identifying viral integration sites that may unravel novel mechanisms of cancer pathogenesis.

PRICE: software for the targeted assembly of components of (Meta) genomic sequence data

Low-cost DNA sequencing technologies have expanded the role for direct nucleic acid sequencing in the analysis of genomes, transcriptomes, and the metagenomes of whole ecosystems. Human and machine comprehension of such large datasets can be simplified via synthesis of sequence fragments into long, contiguous blocks of sequence (contigs), but most of the progress in the field of assembly has focused on genomes in isolation rather than metagenomes. Here, we present software for paired-read iterative contig extension (PRICE), a strategy for focused assembly of particular nucleic acid species using complex metagenomic data as input. We describe the assembly strategy implemented by PRICE and provide examples of its application to the sequence of particular genes, transcripts, and virus genomes from complex multicomponent datasets, including an assembly of the BCBL-1 strain of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus. PRICE is open-source and available for free download (derisilab.ucsf.edu/software/price/ or sourceforge.net/projects/pricedenovo/).

Next-generation sequencing technologies in diagnostic virology

The data deluge produced by next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies is an appealing feature for clinical virologists that are involved in the diagnosis of emerging viral infections, molecular epidemiology of viral pathogens, drug-resistance testing, and also like to do some basic and clinical research. Indeed, NGS platforms are being implemented in many clinical and research laboratories, as the costs of these platforms are progressively decreasing. We provide here some suggestions for virologists who are planning to implement a NGS platform in their clinical laboratory and an overview on the potential applications of these technologies in diagnostic virology.

Metagenomic identification of viral pathogens

The target-independent identification of viral pathogens using 'shotgun' metagenomic sequencing is an emerging approach with potentially wide applications in clinical diagnostics, public health monitoring, and viral discovery. In this approach, all viral nucleic acids present in a sample are sequenced in a random, shotgun manner. Pathogens are then identified without the prerequisite of searching for a specific viral pathogen. In this opinion article, I discuss the current state and future research directions for this emerging and disruptive technology. With further technical developments, viral metagenomics has the potential to be deployed as a powerful and widely adopted tool, transforming the way that viral disease is researched, monitored, and treated.

The diversity of human RNA viruses

We still cannot answer the very basic question "how many kinds of RNA viruses are there?" even for those that infect humans. It is often suggested that there remains a large number of viruses in humans that we have not yet discovered or recognised, and that there is a much larger and rapidly evolving pool of potential new viruses in mammalian and avian reservoirs that humans are continually being exposed to. However, a careful examination of discovery rates of new human RNA virus species, genera and families challenges this view, raising the possibility that the diversity is much more limited. Moreover, there is some evidence that the cast of human viruses is dynamic, with existing viruses disappearing (at least from humans) and new viruses appearing (perhaps evolving) over timescales of decades. Most of these new viruses, however, remain rare; only a small (but highly significant) minority are capable of spreading extensively through human populations.